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Thursday, January 05, 2012

In the queue at Tesco, the cashier told an older woman that she should bringher own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't very good for the environment.

The woman apologised to her and explained, "We didn't have the "green thing"back in my day."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in itsday......or....did we?

Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles towhere we'd bought them. They sent them back to the plant to be washed andsterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. Sothey really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in ourday.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store andoffice building. We walked to the shops and didn't climb into a 3litre petrolguzzling machine every time we had to go 200 yards or drop the kids off toschool. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have thethrow-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobblingmachine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry theclothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, notalways brand-new clothing. But that old lady was right; we didn't have the"green thing" back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room.And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?),not a screen the size of Wales . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred byhand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. Whenwe packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up oldnewspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, wedidn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used apush mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn'tneed to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate onelectricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain or plain tap when we were thirsty instead of usinga cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilledwriting pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razorblades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because theblade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to schoolor walked instead of turning their mothers (or fathers) into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to powera dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerised gadget to receive asignal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find thenearest McDonalds.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folkswere just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old git who possibly needs alesson in conservation from a smartass young person who thinks they know it all.